Bread of Life
Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost
Andrew Sheppard
Much has rightly been made about the familiarity of the kinds of images and metaphors which Jesus employs to talk about himself and the Kingdom that He brings with him. Ordinary, workaday references flow out from Jesus’ mouth as He tries, in the face of human stubbornness, to communicate that which sits in the uncomfortable space where what is necessary and what transcends human capacity overlap. To be sure, we benefit greatly by reading, week after week, the ways that Jesus’ reign looks and sounds like things that grow, food we eat, or jobs we have (or might have had at one point in history). A prophet speaks effectively because they know not just the truth to which they point, but also the ground on which they stand. We would do well to recognize that Jesus’ affinity for simplistic and relatable images conveys less about the (supposed) lack of intelligence and sophistication of the people at the time, and much more about the strangeness that this heavenly Kingdom represents within (and set in opposition to) traditional structures of life, power, and influence.
We should take note, however, of the instances in which such home-grown references are not as gently received. Unsurprisingly, this is often the case as the teachers of the law catch wind of the way Jesus speaks about his upside down Kingdom. It seems that, to some. comprehensible and tangible language is far too pedestrian for speech about heavenly and eternal truths. For these folks, Good News must be the prize at the end of some linguistic puzzle or the awareness of some special phrase that serves as a key to unlock salvation. Whether one sees these images as benign or blasphemous is not of great concern, for when we begin to realize that when Christ speaks about great and eternal truths in humane and tactile terms, He is doing more than just the work of a good rhetorician. As many have said, words matter, and it just might be the case that the words of Jesus matter a great deal more than what we are prone to assume about them.
When it comes to speaking plainly, Jesus in John’s gospel account is second to none: “I am the bread of life.” Both in content and in formulation, this claim could not be more accessible, and yet, the significance of such a claim exceeds that of just about any other that has been made by any human across time. Indeed, the divinity and humanity of Jesus is perhaps most evident when Jesus is speaking about himself and his reign. And understandably, the religious leaders, already skeptical, doubt the validity of a person who claims to be not just bread, but the kind of bread that transcends hunger forever. In a sense, taking Jesus at his word would require the Jewish leaders to suspend all they know about both the “real world” and their faith. How can bread be bread that prevents hunger in the future? How can one come from heaven whose parents we know? Jesus’ claim, it seems to them, is a threat to both realms of understanding.
Of course, by speaking plainly, Jesus is telling them (and us) everything they need to know, if they (and we) could, as the hymn goes, “just take Him at His word.” Instead, the impulse from our limited human capacity and unlimited human restlessness leads to, of all things, as John writes, “complaining.” When all we have is to receive, we find a way to stand before Jesus, close-fisted as ever.
And so, Jesus explains to his hearers what He has already said. Not unlike his explanation of the parables to his disciples, the truth has been there all along. By his answer, Jesus is making it clear that his audacious claim to being life-giving bread is neither a literal nor a theological claim. It is those things, in part, but it is so much more. Again, if we read closely the very words Jesus chose to use, we see that bread and life both fit into what Jesus is claiming about himself. That is to say, neither bread alone or life alone can stand on its own in what Jesus is saying. The beauty of this claim is that it holds both and neither meanings, the literal and the theological.
We don’t see it at first, but when Jesus invokes the prophet Isaiah (or Jeremiah or Joel…), we get a sense that when Jesus states plainly that He is the bread of life, He is not offering for the people a meal that will fill their bodies forever, nor is He providing a one-shot elixir of eternal life. Neither would be true to who God is, the one who bids all who come to Jesus, and by whom “all shall be taught.” Rather, the Bread of Life is an invitation of sorts. When one comes to Jesus, they come as guests invited, at which point they have the opportunity, perhaps the responsibility, to take hold of the bread that is ever being offered, not just once, but as a practice. While the promise of eternal life is surely made, that life is not taken all at once. In other words, bread is bread because it nourishes and sustains, and life is life because it is eternal, but the Bread of Life is Jesus, who raises us up into an eternity of perpetual sustenance and nourishment. To receive the Bread of Life is to no longer hunger because we are filled with a different kind of desire, a desire to enter into a becoming like Christ. For Jesus to be the Bread of Life, He must be a mystery, one that is plumbed just as diligently and necessarily as we come to our dinner tables. To say “whoever eats this bread will live forever” does not mean any more than what it claims. Life forever is found by receiving, little by little, a bit of God’s goodness and light, of which we are always full and yet always desperate to receive.
In these ways (and many others), the plain language of Jesus is actually quite incarnational. Simple words with simple meanings come to mean not more or less than what they have ever meant, but rather full of the glory and richness of the Truth of God. As many of us take to altars this Sunday on which the Bread of Life, broken as flesh, will sit, may we take the opportunity to receive, as intended, bread for the journey along the Way.